Evidence of meeting #62 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bangladesh.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
Tyrone Benskin NDP Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Thank you, Dr. Bose, for your presence here and your testimony. There are many things at play here. I guess originally, like my colleague Mr. Sweet, I was trying to grapple with knowing where I want to go.
One thing I want to explore with you a bit is this. There is a tendency for us in the west to want to narrow things down to there being either a political or a religious problem. It seems to me that there is, in a sense, a playing of one off the other. The two generals have almost deliberately tried to put the religious element into the constitution and have fed it out to people, whereby they're picking up on it. It's almost a case of using it as, for lack of a better way of putting it, a distraction from their desire for a totalitarian type of process disguised as a secular or even a religious environment.
You touched on that, I think, when you were saying that the two warring ladies...that it's more personal than anything political or religious. I would like to explore this a little more with you, if you understand what I'm getting at.
Adviser on Parliamentary and Governmental Affairs, Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council
Now, should I tackle the generals first, or should ladies go first, Mr. Benskin?
NDP
Tyrone Benskin NDP Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Either would do, but I guess the generals, for the simple reason that it seems to me the ladies are the response to what began with the founders and the generals.
Adviser on Parliamentary and Governmental Affairs, Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council
We can start with the generals.
The generals, especially General Ziaur Rahman, came to power on a sea of blood, and he ended in a sea of blood. General Ziaur and after that General Ershad both needed to give themselves some political legitimacy, and they used religion. The idea of signing on the Islamist parties is something that yet another general, Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, did; he brought them on in order to give himself legitimacy.
These two men needed legitimacy, and they thought the easiest way would be to give a banned party—in the case of General Ershad, the Jamaat-e-Islami parliamentary party—into his fold. This was to give him legitimacy. Now, he may say he could control these parties, but they got away, as they always have. So this was in order to create an aura of legitimacy about him. At the same time, he was trying to curry favour with the gulf, don't forget, to take the unemployed hordes off his hands. It's a cynical ploy but this is the way it was.
The two ladies are both very devout Muslims, but this is a personal enmity. When the personal becomes the political, in some cases it can be good, but here it has been a tragedy for the country. They have put their personal likes and dislikes above the good of the country, which is very difficult for many people, whether they are religious or irreligious or whatever, to subscribe to.
This country is poor enough. It cannot afford to lose the amount of money that it is losing. I can give you the figures from the chambers of commerce, but nobody will be able to give you the figures that a day labourer, a waged labourer, a woman working in a factory sewing garments for us is losing. All we can say is that we know they don't have the wherewithal to fall back on.
NDP
Tyrone Benskin NDP Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Thank you.
Caught up in all of this, then, are the religious minorities who are caught in the crossfire of all of this.
You mentioned Sufism as being an inspiration and a connection point, back in history. I've had the pleasure of working.... I did a film called Adam's Wall, in which I played a Sufi Muslim. As part of my education I spent some time with the Sufi, who were the only ones who actually would help me to learn how to pray properly—the imams in Montreal wouldn't do it. I learned about the beauty of Sufism. They're now in hiding in various parts of the world because of this crossfire, and it seems to me that the religious minorities now in Bangladesh are in the same predicament.
In what way can we in the west help to alleviate or work towards...I don't want to say “protecting” but alleviating that situation?
Adviser on Parliamentary and Governmental Affairs, Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council
Mr. Benskin, the Sufis are very few and far between now in Bangladesh.
NDP
Adviser on Parliamentary and Governmental Affairs, Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council
The alleviation, I don't know. There's always the question of bilateral dialogue. But I can tell you this much, Bangladeshi minorities would be very happy, if there's an election, if Canada were to send trained election monitors or support the formation of a Commonwealth election monitoring team. They would be very happy if the government would monitor all the funds that were going in from here to see that a percentage of this is going to the beneficiaries who are from religious and ethnic minorities. They would be very happy if you built capacity in the ministry.
How to do these things? I've put these things down because my background was, once upon a time, in development. Capacity-building is one thing, but that's a very long and not necessarily a successful exercise when it's time bound. If you could improve the lot of all Bangladeshis, then there would be less of a compunction to turn to violent ways of getting justice or what you think is justice.
You have to think of protecting the minorities within a larger framework because the minute there are special quotas for a minority—and I am against quotas—or special affirmative action or whatever, that will draw even more attention to themselves, and this is not what they want.
They say that if you're going to uphold our rights, you also have to see that there is a climate for this kind of thing and that it's a long-term thing. You could start with the educational system. Let them learn the alphabet and let them become literate. There is not much. There are government-run madrasas that do teach the curriculum as well as religious studies. But the Quomi madrasas, such as the ones the Deobandis run are absolutely and strictly religious education, and Ms. Grewal will know.
We have that in the country of our origin, too, so it's the education system. There are two books on the madrasas that have been written by Pakistan, but still.... West Bengal has madrasas and they are controlled by the government. They are regulated and government-run in some cases.
You have to start with the next generation.
Conservative
Adviser on Parliamentary and Governmental Affairs, Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council
Yes. Bengal was divided into two partitions. West Bengal is where I was born. It's India. It's across the border from Bangladesh
Conservative
Adviser on Parliamentary and Governmental Affairs, Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council
Yes. There are some in Bangladesh, too, run by the nation of Bangladesh. They're called Alia and these are called Quomi.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Thank you very much, Dr. Bose, for coming. You've been very helpful.
Thank you, colleagues, for being so darned collegial, transferring time back and forth that way. It was very impressive. A model unlikely to be replicated on every other committee, but we can always hope.
This meeting is adjourned.